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Quic Note - Here P.I.G.gy, P.I.G.gy, P.I.G.gy

+Mark Van Vlack has a very interesting post over at his Dustpan Games blog today about game development and moving a game from a P.I.G (Possibly Interesting Game) to an I.G (Interesting Game). At the end of the piece he poses a question, one that I hope I can suitably answer.

What about a game grabs your attention enough to give it a second or even third look? What is it for you that will turn a P.I.G into a purchase?

The first and most important thing for
me when choosing a game is to be able to flip[ through it and review
what is on pages. This is one of the main reasons I like One
Bookshelf's “PayWhat You Want” feature and believe more
developers should utilize it. As our hobby moves more and more away
from the traditional brick and mortar game stores and from physical
books in general the normal ways of discovering a game system go away
as well. Typically with pdf and epub the reader is unable to flip
through the digital pages and skim to see if he enjoys what is on the
page and the risk exists for people to be burned by cool covers and
blurbs that don't pan out in the actual product.

This is why the “Pay What You Want”
feature is excellent as it allows me to browse the product and decide
partially if it will move from the P.I.G. pile to the I.G. pile. By
browsing the product I can see if the flavor matches what I am
personally into, if the rules are or are not overly complex and if
the product as a whole is composed and presented in such a way that
“flow” exists in a nice and linear fashion.

First lets talk about flavor. Believe
it or not flavor isn't that important in the long run as any rule
system can be shoehorned into any setting, genre or flavor of either
of the previous. However, when first picking up a flavored system
(see Numenera, Eberron, Vampire) the flavor matters because the
flavor is part of the reason that the product was picked up in the
first place. Yes, I can d20 Modern to play a well rounded Supers game
with little modification or I can go and play a flavored version like
d6 Powers or Champions. All three can work in the Supers setting, two
were created for the pure reason of a Supers game. However, (and note
I have not yet read d6 Powers) while d6 Powers is built on one of the
founding fathers of game systems the flavor and flavor related
mechanics may drive me away … for now … and right into the arms
of Champions, d20 or some other system.

In the end mechanics trump flavor for
the reason mentioned above. My personal belief is that any game worth
playing should be readily playable by anyone within five or ten
minutes of the core book being placed in that person's hand. After
all, these are games that we're playing and no game should ever feel
like homework. This is another reason being able to browse a product
is a wonderful idea, because if a potential player is able to grasp
the basic mechanics of character creation from a quick flip through
then the game is probably worth getting. The simplicity of the rules
brings up another point of the mechanics that will change my opinion
toward a potential product; rules over story.

Back when I first saw “Gamers:
Dorkness Rising” I was utterly thrilled that one of the main poles
of the movie was the struggle between the players wanting to adhere
to “the rules as written” and the Dungeon Master just wanting to
tell a great story. Both sides of the coin where shown, the DM
getting railroad-y, the players ruining excellent roleplaying moments
with rules lawyer. It was fun to see this battle brought to life
outside of the tables of real gamers and brings about my point. The
rules to any system should never be so comprehensive that they ruin
the ability for a story to be told. The Game Master should be trusted
to adjudicate fairly and balance player freedom to his story. Once a
game publisher starts to distrust their GMs a lot of potential fun is
lost.

Finally the flow of any given product
in our hobby matters. I personally tend to look at everything from a
character creation point of view. A core book should flow from one
step to the next of character creation and in such away that a first
time player can fill out his character sheet with out constantly
flipping back and forth between the pages. If the core book has a
game master, how-to-play, and monster sections then those two should
be placed in such a way that the player (the person with a character)
comes first. While not the biggest gripe on my end I have seen more
than one new player walk away from a table because they couldn't find
a straight forward question to how CMD worked.

While flavor, mechanics and flow are
important there are other things I look for when trying to discover
if a game is worth my time and cash. Chief among these is the thought
of how much stuff I need or do not need to play the game. Before the
advent of the e-reader and .pdf as the near default means in which
the gaming community consumed the hobby the thought of lugging a
players manual, a Dungeon Master's Guide and a Monster Manual as well
as dice and possibly miniatures would cause my arm and satchel to
whimper. Near the end of 4e the books weren't an issue but my DM
required fortune cards at his game, miniatures, the expanded
character sheets that required an insider account and … too much
stuff!

Personally I believe that one book and
a set of dice (and maybe a mini) are all that is needed. This goes so
far as when I see my brother with his ten pound bag of d10s at a
Vampire game I get sad. Seriously, this should play a role in the
design process of a game, to make the game simple on every level. A
few dice, a reference sheet and maybe a book is all that is really
needed.

Hopefully I answered the question of
what I look for in a potential game and more-so I hope that my own
endeavors into game design will eventually invoke these thoughts and
belief.

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